Sandbox
by Nocens
Summary: There was a sandbox there...And above her was a small figure – a child. A child no older than ten, stroking the smooth bone of the corpse, cleaning the blood away with a corner of his bloodsoaked shirt. , NaruGaa, AU, disturbing content.
1. The Sandbox Murders

** WARNING!: Extremely disturbing content. Child death. Yaoi ,a hint of shota.  
**

**A/N: **Just something to get the muse going. Will be a few chapters long. I hope those who enjoy this genre like he story.

**Sandbox**

The News blared with the gruesome case. The Papers printed three words over and over in bright red enormous script, center front page. The Radio lead endless debates over anything related.

But even that couldn't explain the utter horror that he could see in the people's eyes.

It was disturbingly funny how complete strangers feared and hated and maybe even pitied just because the News and the Papers and the Radio said so.

He wondered in any of them would ever really understand. Probably not. Why should they? _How_ could they?

He wasn't sure even he himself understood despite the familiarity that had unexpectedly reared its head. A strange _empathy_ had been fuelling a half-smile on his face for over a week now – ever since he'd seen it.

It had been so...so _beautiful_. It had reached a lever of perfection he could only hope to reach one day.

At first he had not believed it possible. The utter..._preciousness_of it, had taken his breath away and made his heart beat in his chest. An almost erotic elation one could feel when seeing the touch of God.

Entering his work he nodded to his colleagues as he made his way to his office, sure that he looked preoccupied as that day and that _moment_ replayed themselves, over and over, and over...

He put away his jacket and opened his briefcase, taking out a laptop and opening it on his desk, moving a couple of files away to make space on the cluttered surface.

He left it to boot up and moved mechanically to get some coffee, polite greetings coming to his lips mindlessly, as they always had.

He poured himself a cup of scalding lack coffee and went back to his office, even though he knew he would never be able to concentrate.

The day of _his_ judgment was coming.

&&&

It had been exactly six months ago when the Papers, the News and the Radio had for the first time reported the start of what would later become a myth more gruesome than Jack the Reaper's.

The first disappearance had been then. Exactly six months ago in the Everlight Park.

At first it had only been reported as such – a young woman and her infant child had turned up missing after their daily walk in the park.

The police had searched and searched but it was as if they had disappeared completely. Complications in the face of a reportedly abusive husband with an alibi and a couple of unreachable relatives though had left the investigation hanging as it became more and more possible that the woman had simply left.

Then a month later the same scenario had repeated – a mother and her son of ten months had not come back from their afternoon walk in Everlight.

This time there we no Complications. The husband was a respected businessman, the family was loving and especially hysterical in their demands of the police.

The police itself was gearing up – the disappearances had too many correlations to be simply coincidence. It had gone unsaid but fearfully acknowledged that they might have a particularly twisted serial killer on the loose. There was still hope that the women and children weren't dead but the severe lack of clues was piling up against that conclusion. If they were alive it would be hard to cover up the needs of two infants and their mothers, as well as their presence.

Detectives were assigned by the scores when a third woman disappeared even less than a month after that.

The partial press blockage had been impossible to maintain anymore and the Story was born. The sleazier magazines started calling the unknown person the 'Mommynapper'.

The public was disgusted and fearful.

There had been a pause of almost two months then, no new clues, no disappearings and the Story slowed down. Still very few mothers dared to go to Everlight and even when they did - it was always in groups and in the wide-open fringes of the Park.

Despite this a few days to the two-month mark disappearance number four was trumped up in all the media. Panic blossomed, the police were getting nowhere, people feared.

Still there were precious few clues and no credible suspects. He had been hooked by then, already somehow anticipating an interesting end to the drama that consumed the world around him, and slowly – himself.

An almost hysterical feeling had settled over the community and the Story had gone nationwide.

The News and the Papers and The Radio were going rabid. Tales of figures reminiscent of Jack the Reaper himself were spin and the enormous shadow of the nameless one responsible loomed over everyday life.

The Story had taken a life of its own and the faceless figure of a modern-time Boogeyman created. Everyone waited with their breaths stilling for the crescendo that was sure to follow.

And it followed. In the form of one particularly fierce mother.

&&&

As he sat in his office he tried to remember her, like he had seen her _that_ day.

But he could see only one thing and that wasn't her.

His heart started bearing hard, so hard, against his chest. The excitement of _that_ day still pulsing in him.

&&&

Apparently Victim number five was a policewoman who was on maternity leave.

Despite that she didn't survive but she gave the Story's Boogeyman a face by dieing. It didn't happen using the gun they had found near her. The damning thing had been a simple unassuming cell phone.

The call had come at 16:17 hours, received by the dispatchers of precinct five.

The police had moved without hesitation. They were at the scene not five minutes later – armed to the teeth, a SWAT team on the way, ready to kill. Willing to kill the undisputed monster.

&&&

He had been there.

It was an old playground, deeper in the park.

A bit to the side, but he had been there. Where he had had a perfect view of the most _beautiful_ being he had ever laid eyes on. Its beauty later expanded over that initial, breath-taking moment, as he saw their work.

&&&

He more felt than saw the policemen stop, freezing around him in mute disbelief that turned to bewildered horror.

There was a sandbox there. It looked recently plowed.

It was muddy. Blood had pooled and soaked the sand.

In the middle of it, grotesquely laid out – limps spread, clothes shred, face peeled off to the white, white, gleaming bone - was the woman.

And above her was a small figure – a child. A child no older than ten, stroking the smooth bone of the corpse, cleaning the blood away with a corner of his blood-soaked shirt.

In his other arm wiggled the screaming baby, and in his hand – a slender bloody blade.

His hair was red – like the blood covering him. His skin sharply pale, almost glowing against the blood that run over it – blood not his own.

His hand, the one cleaning up the bone was small, long-fingered.

He was an angel of a macabre tale. He was absolutely captivating.

Unearthly.

He was frozen as much as the men around him but for an entirely different reason. He was sure then, that he would never again feel such enlightenment. God had reached out of the fiery depths of Hell and delivered this one little piece of himself to him.

He stayed in place, barely aware of the confusion around him, of men lowering their guns and slowly approaching, gently asking His Angel what had happened. That everything was alright then, that the police was here.

His Angel didn't move until they were barely a couple of meters away – approaching him as one would a skittish animal.

Then he stopped cleaning. The men stopped as well, some inner chill cementing them to their places as His Angel looked up with the face of a deity.

He could have died happy then – having seen his magnificence and he almost did.

His heart lurched and an explosion of inner hear almost knocked him off his feet as His Angel swiftly laid the child down blindly and before anyone could even breath out plunged the blade in. The power of God in his eyes.

He panted then, but so did the policemen around him.

There were screams, running feet, someone pushed against him, but he couldn't see or hear. Nothing mattered as those eyes suddenly found his. A second – no more.

His Angel.

&&&

Even now more than two weeks later his breath still caught at the memory.

He could no more concentrate on his work than he could rid himself of His image, haunting every waking hour. Every dream.

He exited his office and made his way to the laboratory where his team was still processing evidence from the case.

He looked at the large wall of pictures.

The sandbox had been revealed as His magnificent work – the eight bodies – four large ones and four little ones – were positioned painstakingly. The mothers curled protectively around the children – their bony faces white and shiny, at the four sides of the sandbox. The middle would have been the centerpiece – victim number five.

The Mothers of Death, forever protecting their children, nurturing them in their cold embraces.

A hand landed on his shoulder and he spared a small look over his shoulder at his coroner. She was odd to him with her pink hair and strange expression of pity.

"Don't worry Boss – we'll get him for every single one of them. I don't care how old he is", she paused while he said nothing and she looked at the wall as well.

"This isn't the work of a human. He's a demon Boss, a demon", her voice wavered and she gave his shoulder a squeeze before walking away as if in a hurry.

He continued looking at the wall.

A Demon.

The Mothers of Death and their Demon Children.

He smiled. Turning to go back to his office – his mind clearing a little.

His Angel. A Demon.

"Sabaku no Gaara", he murmured.

&&

The door closed as the blonde man, the one considered a genius in his field, the one who always knew how his target thought, entered the office of the Head of the Crime Scene Investigations unit.

People often said he was uncanny, easy to slip into the mentality of the killer they were after and find the clues he left behind.

But then again all those people wondering at his skill didn't know of his own little Sandbox, did they?

* * *

A/N: Those of you who've seen 'Dexter' would notice the connection. The story was born late last night while I re-read my own 'Life' and the plot just popped up. 

Expect more and some twisted NaruGaa, but do not expect any explicit sex scenes, though there will be sex at some later point. I never was too fond of writng those.

* * *


	2. Gaara's Story

**A/N: Happy New Year!** May it be the best yet and all your dreams become reality! Just a celebratory update as a modest gift. Expect more updates of most of my stories:D

**Sandbox**

Gaara's story

Gaara was born Gabriel Cox-Himura and that is how the media knew him.

Gaara was nine when he committed The Sandbox Murders, as they were called. At that time only four people called him that, or even knew the 'pet' name. Three of those were his father, brother and sister.

The fourth learned the name a bit later – while Gaara awaited his trial in a white cell.

But that came later.

First there was Gabriel – the son of Castor Cox and Yuki Himura.

Castor Cox was a renowned plastic surgeon who specialized in face trauma. Many called him a genius of the scalpel and he was. He was sought after from people who everyone else had turned back as beyond help and most times than not he did his magic.

Cox was very good at his wok and it had repaid him handsomely in the form of a large, modern house and a bulging bank account, that allowed him a rich lifestyle. But despite the monetary status of his accounts Cox was not a happy man.

He was rarely seen without an intimidating scowl on his face. He just as rarely went to public events or gatherings, had very few friends.

He was forty-one-years-old, with one divorce and two children he rarely saw when he met Yuki Himura – the beautiful, socialite daughter of the former ambassador of Japan.

She had been twenty-three and living the grand life of a spoilt daughter, a social butterfly and a well sought-after lady, before meeting him.

Yuki Himura had been in a domestic accident that had resulted in boiling oil being spilt on her face – disfiguring her severely. She had already tried suicide once when her father managed to get the famous doctor Cox to take his beloved daughter's case.

Cox had previously refused to take the case as it as not as complex as it looked and the operation could be performed by another surgeon while he kept his urgent patients. He had had several conversations with ambassador Himura himself, who had insisted saying his daughter had refused to be operated on by any other surgeon.

It took the failed suicide attempt for Cox to agree, albeit reluctantly.

So the two met then – she disfigured and dangerously depressed and he – feeling pressured into working on a what to him was a meaningless case.

It took a series of operations spanning over more than two years for him to restore her former beauty and in that time Himura was stone cold in obsession with her savior.

It took her an additional year and a half to seduce him and marry him.

But her obsession grew, unknown to her husband, as his attitude stayed cold. Paying private detectives to sate her paranoia, examining his clothes and notes for any trace of deceit, always calling him for the simplest things so she could then 'casually' ask where he was, were only a part of the things she did.

She obsessed over her looks, always thinking that she was imperfect and that that was the reason for his coldness.

When she learned she was pregnant she panicked.

On one hand she would be giving the man a child, which should keep him closer to her, but he had never expressed a wish for children and at hearing the news had little to no reaction.

But the pregnancy would ruin her figure, would make her fat and undesirable, unable to live up to her perfectionist husband's standards. So she decided to abort the child.

Cox may had been to a large degree oblivious to he true nature of his wife but he was a smart man and immediately noticed a change in her behavior, the cringes when someone mentioned pregnancy, the hateful glances that were quick but not quick enough, aimed at her stomach.

And maybe he was a little paranoid himself as he had her followed and when the man called him urgently, telling him his wife had entered an abortion clinic he had raced over, barely managing to stop the procedure.

Then he had seen what the woman had become as she raved at him and cried in a way no sane person could.

He had hired a woman to take care of her and a man to guard his unborn child from its own mother for the duration of the pregnancy. He refused to allow her out of the house, kept her hidden as her madness grew, feeling hate and pity. Feeling frustration at not being able to give her the medication he knew would help but would kill the baby.

So for six months he kept his mad, pregnant wife hidden from the world and became more and more bitter, the hate he felt prevailing as she tried again and again to kill the child.

When it was born, after a hellish ordeal of a birth that included a caesarian, he was close to becoming as mad as his wife, nearly descending into insanity as the child had opened its eyes and he had seen Yuki looking back at him from them

Immediately after birth he had had his wife committed into a clinic while nurses took care of his son and he immersed himself in his work.

When Yuki came home it was almost as if she had never gone mad, as she apologized to him and their son again and again. She devoted herself to little Gabriel and after a time Cox calmed and even started to believe it could all work out, though he could still not make himself love her as he might have before.

Of the surface of things was not so when one looked under the crust of pretences. While Yuki might have been on medication she also frequently missed taking it and the hate and insanity that had grown in her for years and had reached a crescendo in the birth of the boy reared its head.

But after being locked in her own house, kept prisoner by the very same man that was the center of her obsession had changed that obsession's nature and as she looked at _his_ son she saw the boy's father in him. The insane love and hate she felt for him collided in her disturbed brain and she would spill it onto the object that caused it – little Gabriel.

She started calling him Gaara – her own demon, telling her husband it was a pet name for beloved.

When her husband was there she would hug the child and play with him, and smile and tell him how much she loved them both.

When Cox was away Yuki would glare at the child and rave, and shake his small body, wishing she could shake off the face of that man off the infant's face. In her most delusional moments she would even put a hand over his mouth and nose and keep them there almost too long. Almost.

A couple of years passed this way and Gaara grew into an extremely silent and withdrawn child, which would always follow its smother like a shadow. He barely talked and his first word had not come until he was nearly two-years-old.

Cox thought the child was too shy and loved his mother too much. He was right about at least one of those.

Some of Gaara's earliest memories were of his mother's face – warm and loving, and of her hands – bruising, hurtful, suffocating.

Gaara didn't know many kinds his age as his mother didn't like going out much and his father was almost never home. In result his mother was the only person who he depended on. She was the one who fed him, she was the one who clothed him, bathed him, hugged him and called him her sweet Gaara.

Gaara didn't remember a time when she hadn't been like that – loving and attentive when here were other people around and punishing when they were alone. He knew it was right. He knew it was how a mother was supposed to act, because he was a 'demon' and there was some 'him' he looked like that his mother hated.

But despite knowing this was how things were supposed to be there were some times, sometimes when Yuki would hurt him so much, that he wished they weren't so. Wished he was better.

He continued his existence in such a way until his sixth year when it was time for him to start school.

His mother tried to make his father hire a private tutor but he refused, saying Gaara needed to socialize more.

On his first day of school something unprecedented happened – his father took him out alone, as his mother had hidden herself in her room with the excuse that she was too distraught to part with him.

Gaara had never spent much time with his father and almost never without his mother being present.

It was frightening as Gabriel Cox was not a small man and his natural disposition was intimidating. But Gaara wasn't afraid of his silence or scowl. His mind was conditioned in a different way and his fear stemmed from the man's strong hands, which looked much more capable of harming him than his mother's small ones.

He was fully expecting the same type of double standard from his father so he tried to hide his fear – something he knew made his mother angrier – and tried being at least not so bad.

The car ride seemed endless to Gaara and by the time they reached the school the boy had completely forgotten about their destination.

His father parked in an alley near the school and with the stop of the engine Gaara readied himself. He knew by then how to – he would relax as much as he could, take a deep breath, close his eyes and never, ever struggle or cry out, or it would be worse.

So he did this but this strange foreign situation didn't allow him to do t well enough and so when his father's hand landed on his shoulder he jerked a little, then horrified stiffened.

When his father patted his shoulder gently and told him not to be afraid and that he would make many new friends then exited the car and called for him to follow, he couldn't for a few seconds. His eyes wide open he stared at his father, uncomprehending at the strange occurrence and wondering why he wasn't delivering punishment.

It took his father calling him again, a little annoyance in his voice for Gaara to move from his stupor and do so.

His first day of school was even more confusing. Everyone was laughing and screaming and running around, a gently smiling woman was reprimanding them but not shaking or hitting or choking them. Maybe only mothers did that? Or maybe these other children were better than him?

He didn't think he should have been doing the things the other children were so he sat in a corner of the playroom the way his mother had taught him – on the ground, hands on his knees and back straight and didn't move as this was how his mother usually wanted him to act when she wasn't punishing him in some way.

The young woman that they called teacher had introduced herself as Miss Martin to the kids when she managed to get them seated but hadn't seen Gaara in his little corner. It took her close to two hours to finally notice the small red-headed child.

Gaara didn't know it but sensed her discomfort when she approached him and he looked at her.

Maybe she knew 'him' and hated him too? He didn't know so he had stayed silent and stared at her.

She had kneeled before him and asked him why he wasn't playing with the other children.

Gaara didn't answer. He didn't understand. He wouldn't be supposed to play with the other kinds as he was a demon and playing was for 'good' kids.

She had smiled at him but he had continued to stare.

Then she'd asked him if he wanted to go with her so she could introduce him to the other children.

He'd narrowed his eyes in thought and said 'No'. He didn't think his mother would like that.

But Miss Martin had said he shouldn't stay apart and had taken his hand to help him stand.

Years and years of his mother's anger didn't allow him to resist the physical hold and he had followed, consciously relaxing and preparing.

When she finally released him and started his introduction he just stared at the children. They seemed so different from him and he didn't know why. The initial feeling of dislike for them grew quickly so when one or two brave ones proclaimed they wanted to his friends he only glared at them and turned to the teacher asking if he could please be excused.

The young woman was startled by this behavior and after a few futile attempts to make him stay told him he could.

Gaara didn't understand why she looked at him in that way when he went back to the corner and sat back down like he should.

At the end of the day his father came to pick him up and again Gaara readied himself for what in his mind was inevitable as he watched the mothers and fathers pick their children up with kisses and hugs and smiles as they drove by.

Again his father simply helped him with his bag and didn't deliver anything more than a pat on his shoulder and a question about his first day of school.

Things continued in this way for a week then his father hired a driver for him as his mother refused to drive him to school.

Instead she became angrier and angrier and harsher and harsher.

School had introduced a source of infinite confusion and a new feeling of hatred to Gaara.

He didn't understand his classmates and the teacher, didn't like them and wished he wasn't there.

They were too happy, laughed too much, smiled too much.

One day he had tried to smile with a boy whom he could maybe tolerate and he had stopped smiling and run away.

Soon the kids called him Weirdo and no one bothered him with invitations to play anymore. Miss Martin still tried sometimes but after a month even her enthusiasm weaned.

So his life went, confusing yet painfully clear for Gaara – his mother's demon, his father's sometimes son, if he had enough time, and the class Weirdo.

It had been pre-decided that the end of this story would not be a happy one.

Happy, no, not even bad.

It had been a horrible, terribly twisted epilogue of a string of ruined lives. One that just a few years later would have the interviewing psychologist giving in his resignation and moving to a small town far to the south and the judge and jury close to releasing the disturbed child.

None who had learned of the demon Gaara's life ever spoke about it again. They couldn't.


	3. Everyday life of a homicidal child

A/N : A short update dedicate dto a reader who left a wonderful review and has an absolutely adorable nickname. You'll know who you are ;)

Sandbox 3.

Everyday life of a sadistic homicidal child

It all started with Miss Martin.

He didn't like her. Just like he didn't like the children so he had decided that he should ignore her.

After all his mother had been cursing the woman since the firs night and would often go on at great length of Miss Martin's evil ways. How she was separating them, taking Gaara away from her.

She said he should hate her. Shouldn't listen to her.

It had been one of the first and only times in his life when his mother had seemed at least a little genuinely pleased with him when he'd told her he hated everyone in his class as well as Miss Martin.

So he ignored her despite her continuing efforts to include him.

She would tell him bad things. How he should be happy, have fun, how she was concerned for him. Mean and hurtful lies to his ears when he _knew_ he was the worst kind of bad.

But she persisted and one day he told her that he was vary, very bad and also that he hated her – that he hated everyone.

He thought that should make her leave him alone – knowing the truth about him.

Instead she called his home. And as chance would have it for once his father was at home to pick up.

She had asked to meet Gaara's parents concerning his behavior.

His mother refused and Gaara had to hide a limp for most of a week and it took even longer than that for the blue-black patches to disappear from his body.

After the meeting had come another come of those strange occurrences with his father.

He's been sat in the kitchen, given a glass of a treat his mother had only given him twice in his life– chocolate milk – like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Gaara had been so immersed in the tall glass full of sweetness he knew he didn't deserve that he'd missed quite a bit of what his father had been saying. But Gaara was despite everything an extremely smart child and he'd quickly caught up and understood that he shouldn't have told Miss Martin the truth because he had scared her and she had talked to his father about something called 'therapy'.

His father had asked him what was wrong – Gaara had been confused by the question. He'd thought it was obvious that he had been bad once again, so he'd apologized for that thinking that even if he was never there his father must be aware of that truth.

Apparently that had been the wrong thing to say as he'd been shocked when his father had hugged him, hugged him! He had told him he was very good boy and that he shouldn't say things like that.

It was then that Gaara realized that his world had gotten even smaller. There were only two people in it after this – him and his mother.

The next month was filled with a strange woman with strange glasses asking him how he felt and what did he see in the picture and so many things he didn't want to talk about. Mostly this was because he didn't know what felling was , what should it be? What could be considered appropriate? So he hadn't answered in fear of repeating his mistake and at the end of the month his father had to meet Miss Martin again.

There had been a glass of chocolate milk again. Then the woman with the strange glasses became a short man with no glasses who smiled entirely too much.

As it seemed his previous strategy had been wrong he had tried talking some but it didn't help either until he thought to start turning things around.

He would answer the question in his mind then tell the man the exact opposite answer. That seemed to make the man very happy. Gaara didn't like him.

Then he gave him some strange test with a lot of pictures and some math's problems and a week later he was moved to different class with some of the bigger kids.

His mother was furious. Gaara learned to write with his left hand and the cast came off in less than a month. He said he fell down the stairs.

He hated the new class even more than the last. He hated Miss Newton even more. Sometimes he would wish she was bad enough so he could do like his mother did.

After a month his new classmates hated him back and because they were older and bigger than the small weird redhead he became a target for the class bullies. After they got over the fear of his unblinking hateful stare.

They started small with a shove here and there, stealing his pen because he never used the colorful pencils.

It escalated without Gaara retaliating until one day when his chauffeur was late they gathered the bluster to actually hit him.

It was nothing for him physically but in his mind the only one who could do that to him was his mother. No one else. Because he was her demon.

He was too small and frail to be able to fight back so he took it wordlessly without crying out. The bruises didn't even show under the ones already on him. No one else knew.

It took him a week to find a way to get back at them. He had to break a house rule and enter his father's library but he decided he was bad already and he hated those bullies so much! No one had the right to hurt him but his mother!

So he took a couple of small bottles that had once held some kind of pills and filled them half-way up with water then took a packet of the stuff they used to unclog pipes and hid it in his pack.

Patiently he waited for the best time, he told the driver they would have an arts project last period so he should come a little late. He already knew those boys used that excuse to have their parents pick them up later.

All day he simply looked at them , not reacting to anything they did.

Then the time came and most kinds were picked promptly by parents or chauffeurs and soon it was him and the boys. They came towards him and he ran , knowing they would follow to the side of the school. He was fast and had time to open the bottles and pour some of the blue granules inside making the concoction hiss.

When they came on him he took out the makeshift bat –a piece of pipe he almost didn't have enough strength to swing. But swing it he did and a strange , sharp and pleasurable feeling of satisfaction filled him when it connected with them, making them cry out .

Afraid the noise would draw attention he hurried and quickly poured the concoction in their mouth.

The cries stopped. There was some strange gurgling and they trashed and he felt that feeling again. He didn't know what to do about it so he took the pipe and hit them again. And again. And again. Until he was panting and they were bloodied and they only twitched from time to time.

He panted, unused to feeling so much and so much exertion but put the pipe away, the bottles and thought about what he'd read. There shouldn't be anything left to identify him as the attacker.

He made sure his clothes were ok and ran trough the back entrance then exited the front where his chauffeur was already waiting.

That strange feeling stayed with him, duller and distant but it spiked when he thought of it. He saw the chauffeur shoot him a bemused look and he wondered why so he looked in the window. He had to raise a hand and touch his face to believe he was seeing himself in it. He was smiling. He didn't think he'd ever smiled before.

666

Eleven years later ….

Gaara walked looked trough the unbreakable glass window of the door before it opened.

The view was the same as it had been for the last nine years of his life – same drab gray walls, clone-like personnel who to him had no faces, the same. Everything was the same.

The one thing different was the fact that the door _opened_.

He was led to the hall beyond and quickly shuffled to the entrance where his future keeper was waiting.

He'd met him a few times before. He didn't have any particular opinion of him.

The man turned to him with a small smile on his scarred face.

"Hello Kiyoshi"

Gaara nodded, answering to the new name he had been given.

Due to the enormous publicity of his crimes he was given a new identity in order for him to able to live a relatively normal life.

Gaara didn't often wonder of what they meant by 'normal life'.

At least the name was somewhat fitting – the quiet one.

Though his psychiatrist had decided that his continued quiet and reserved nature were no longer due to a psychosis where they covered a need for violence and endless hate for humankind, Gaara only though of his attitude as one of avoidance.

Nine years in the Institute had served two put in stone one of the rules of his early life: the less you said at all the less you can say wrong.

The other thing that he had learned was that absence of feeling was a good thing - it help you lie convincingly enough, as proven by the fact that he was standing on the other side of the door.

His new guardian finished signing the papers and said his farewells, beckoning Gaara to follow him.

He did without looking back.

Gaara didn't think Mr. Umino saw the flash look of pure loathing he allowed himself to shoot the Institute as it disappeared trough the back windshield of the car.


End file.
